[478] Geognosie, ii, p. 1173.
[479] According to Hohenstein, Der Wald, pp. 228, 229, an extensive plantation of pines—a tree new to Southern Russia—was commenced in 1842, on the barren and sandy banks of the Ingula, near Elisabethgrod, and has met with very flattering success. Other experiments in sylviculture at different points on the steppes promise valuable results.
[480] "Sixteen years ago," says an Odessa landholder, "I attempted to fix the sand of the steppes, which covers the rocky ground to the depth of a foot, and forms moving hillocks with every change of wind. I tried acacias and pines in vain; nothing would grow in such a soil. At length I planted the varnish tree, or ailanthus, which succeeded completely in binding the sand." This result encouraged the proprietor to extend his plantations over both dunes and sand steppes, and in the course of sixteen years this rapidly growing tree had formed real forests. Other landowners have imitated his example with great advantage.—Rentsch, Der Wald, p. 44, 45.
[481] Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste, i, pp. 204 et seqq.
[482] "If we suppose the narrow isthmus of Central America to be sunk in the ocean, the warm equatorial current would no longer follow its circuitous route around the Gulf of Mexico, but pour itself through the new opening directly into the Pacific. We should then lose the warmth of the Gulf Stream, and cold polar currents flowing farther southward would take its place and be driven upon our coasts by the western winds. The North Sea would resemble Hudson's Bay, and its harbors be free from ice at best only in summer. The power and prosperity of its coasts would shrivel under the breath of winter, as a medusa thrown on shore shrinks to an insignificant film under the influence of the destructive atmosphere. Commerce, industry, fertility of soil, population, would disappear, and the vast waste—a new Labrador—would become a worthless appendage of some clime more favored by nature."—Hartwig, Das Leben des Meeres, p. 70.
[483] I know nothing of Captain Allen's work but its title and its subject. Very probably he may have anticipated many of the following speculations, and thrown light on points upon which I am ignorant.
[484] "Some haue writtē, that by certain kings inhabiting aboue, the Nilus should there be stopped; & at a time prefixt, let loose vpon a certaine tribute payd them by the Aegyptians. The error springing perhaps frō a truth (as all wandring reports for the most part doe) in that the Sultan doth pay a certaine annuall summe to the Abissin Emperour for not diuerting the course of the Riuer, which (they say) he may, or impouerish it at the least."—George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, etc., p. 98.
[485] The Recca, a river with a considerable current, has been satisfactorily identified with a stream flowing through the cave of Trebich, and with the Timavo—the Timavus of Virgil and the ancient geographers—which empties through several mouths into the Adriatic between Trieste and Aquileia. The distance from Trieste to a suitable point in the grotto of Trebich is thought to be less than three miles, and the difficulties in the way of constructing a tunnel do not seem formidable. The works of Schmidl, Die Höhlen des Karstes, and Der unterirdische Lauf der Recca, are not common out of Germany, but the reader will find many interesting facts derived from them in two articles entitled Der unterirdische Lauf der Recca, in Aus der Natur, xx, pp. 250-254, 263-266.
[486] Barth, Wanderungen durch die Küsten des Mittelmeeres, i, p. 353. In a note on page 380, of the same volume, Barth cites Strabo as asserting that a similar practice prevailed in Iapygia; but it may be questioned whether the epithet τραχεῖα, applied by Strabo to the original surface, necessarily implies that it was covered with a continuous stratum of rock.
[487] Parthey, Wanderungen durch Sicilien und die Levante, i, p. 404.